Q&A
OAAHC handling of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) cases
2:02:26
·
170 sec
Council Member Alexa Avilés questioned representatives about the Office of Asylum Application Help Center (OAAHC) handling of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) cases. Key points included:
- OAAHC conducted a pilot program to handle SIJS cases, focusing on 20-year-olds at risk of aging out of eligibility.
- The pilot was considered successful, with 39 SIJS cases filed, 37 successful in getting family court orders, and 2 receiving SIJS status so far.
- The program aims to preserve eligibility for youth weeks away from turning 21 who might otherwise miss the opportunity for SIJS.
- OAAHC uses a pro se model to assist applicants, which raised concerns from the council member.
- The focus on cases so close to aging out was questioned, given the limited time for full legal representation.
- The discussion highlighted tensions between providing last-minute assistance and ensuring comprehensive legal support for SIJS cases.
Alexa Avilés
2:02:26
So So in terms of I'd like to shift over to Owasso very quickly.
2:02:32
Is it true that Owasso is now handling special immigrant juvenile status cases?
Masha Gindler
2:02:39
I can answer that.
2:02:40
Hi, everyone.
2:02:41
My name is Masha Gendler.
2:02:42
I haven't had a chance to introduce myself.
2:02:44
I'm the executive director of this Adam application help center and historically focus on asylum TPS and work authorization.
2:02:52
However, we were interested in doing a pilot to see if we could do Sige cases per se.
2:03:00
And we have concluded that pilot, we considered to have been successful.
2:03:05
We focus on doing Sige for twenty year olds that can't be referred to providers and are at risk of aging out of the support.
Alexa Avilés
2:03:18
I'm sorry.
2:03:18
Did you say that it was successful?
2:03:21
Can you tell us more about the numbers and Yeah.
2:03:24
What what made it successful?
Masha Gindler
2:03:26
So We wanted to make sure that this is done right.
2:03:29
So we've we've now filed 39 SAGE cases, and of those all but 2 were 6 successful in getting the family court orders that we're able to send over to USCIS and of those cases to have received SAGE status and they the rest were still waiting on.
2:03:56
But we were concerned about, you know, we want to see if we were able to get the family court orders needed to send to USCIS, and we found that 95% of our cases so far, we worry to.
Alexa Avilés
2:04:08
So it sounds like in these cases, they were twenty year olds, which is better than what we are hearing.
2:04:19
But with only with only 2 granted, how how are you planning to remain with those cases to make sure that they they are indeed successful?
Masha Gindler
2:04:31
It's a good question.
2:04:32
So for for those 2 that are granted, when I say successful, I mean that they got such status, deferred action, and we're able to bring them back and apply them for work authorization.
2:04:45
But it's true that ultimately what's best for those clients is to eventually get connected to a fuller presentation.
2:04:52
But I think just as we do with asylum, our role in the ecosystem is try to prevent people from aging out and give as many people so ports as we can knowing that we're adding to the kind of ecosystem, not substituting it.
2:05:08
We ultimately are a prosay model, and we wanted to be able to do this to be as helpful as possible to scenario that we're seeing.